Chapter 7 - The Strike
On Tuesday evening, the trap was set.
Dominic Marcone believed he had backed Mason Voss into a corner. He believed that by targeting the diner waitress and her kids, he had found a soft, vulnerable underbelly in the armored hide of the king of Chicago.
At an abandoned railyard on the city's West Side, six of Marcone’s top lieutenants gathered inside an old repair hangar, waiting for a shipment of unregistered firearms that was supposed to give them the firepower needed to challenge Voss’s territory.
The heavy steel doors of the hangar didn't blow open. They were unlocked from the inside.
Mason Voss walked into the dim, rust-scented building alone. He wore no Kevlar vest, no tactical helmet. Just his black suit, his white shirt, and a dark wool coat.
Dominic Marcone, sitting on a wooden crate near a running diesel generator, stood up with a harsh laugh.
"Voss!" Marcone sneered, pulling a revolver from his waistband. "You walked in here alone? Are you out of your mind? Did that diner skirt turn your brain to mush?"
Mason stopped ten feet away. The light from the single hanging bulb reflected off his cold, dark eyes.
"You made three errors, Dominic," Mason said, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls.
Marcone scoffed. "Oh yeah? What's that?"
"First, you assumed Julian Vargas’s debt gave you rights over his family," Mason said calmly. "Second, you sent men to a home where children were sleeping."
Marcone’s smile faltered slightly at the absolute, terrifying lack of fear in Mason's voice. "And what’s the third?"
"You assumed I came alone."
From the shadows above the rafters, red laser sights suddenly painted the chests of all six men in the room. Heavy tactical doors slammed shut at both ends of the hangar, locked from the outside by Frank’s assault team.
Marcone’s face drained of color. "Voss... wait! We can talk! It was just business! I didn't know the girl was yours!"
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"She isn't mine," Mason said softly, stepping closer as Marcone dropped his gun in pure terror. "Her name is Rosa. Her daughters are Lily, Chloe, Mia, and Sophie. And you will never speak their names again."
Mason turned his back and walked toward the exit as the shadow of his empire closed in behind him.
